IF YOU CAN’T REACH WHAT YOU WANT 7-11-17

Getting up off the sofa is
a chore. I have to hook a toe under the coffee table to get leverage. Thank
goodness it is a nice heavy table my father made out of real wood, or my toe
would tip everything on it off to the floor on the other side. Then I have to
coordinate the toe lift with an elbow roll. Sometimes it takes two or three
tries to get me off the sofa.

I try to put everything I
need close by, all my books and magazines and newspapers and snacks and drinks.
There is a table beside my sofa, and stuff piled on the back of the sofa, and
stuff piled on the floor beside it. Still, it is impossible to have everything
I need within reach.

So if something I want to
read or eat or drink is out of reach, I read or eat or drink whatever I can
reach.

It is not a bad approach
to life: Do what you can reach.

It is hard, of course, to
disagree with Robert Browning: “Ah, but a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or
what’s a heaven for?” I’ll bet Browning was not very old when he said that,
though. When you get old enough, your reach and your grasp are pretty much the
same.

I used to have a long
reach. People asked me to get things off high shelves for them. Like civil
rights, and forgiveness, and world peace, and better relationships, and freedom
from addiction or abuse. I reached, and sometimes I was successful. Often,
though, the reach exceeded my grasp.

A rotator cuff tear and
consequent surgery have shortened my reach. I still try to grasp things on the
high shelves, but I am more realistic about how far my arm will go. An end to
world hunger is not within my reach, so I try for helping out on local
hunger.

We old people cannot reach
everything we used to, and we cannot get up as easily to go to where the stuff
is, either, but we can reach some
stuff, and we can get up sometimes.

It’s not a bad approach to
life: if you can’t reach the stuff you want, want the stuff you can reach.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Yes, I know I promised to
stop writing for a year while I try to be a real Christian instead of just a professional
Xn. But this isn’t very professional, is it?

The “place of winter”
mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
[The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is
explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I tweet as yooper1721.

Katie Kennedy is the
rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by
Bloomsbury, which also published lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her new book,
What Goes Up, comes out July 18. It’s
published in paper, audio, and electronic, and available for pre-order even
now, from B&N, Amazon, Powell’s, etc.

Speaking of writing, my
most recent book, VETS, about four
homeless and handicapped Iraqistan veterans, is available from Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, BOKO, etc. It’s published by Black Opal Books.